In this article, we take a look at the price outlook for Bitcoin and Ethereum after the news of the now almost certain approval of BlackRock’s Ishares spot ETF by the SEC broke a few days ago.
BlackRock’s proposed financial product has indeed been added to the DTCC list with the ticker ‘ibtc’ and the CUSIP code 46438F101, and is expected to be openly tradable on the Nasdaq shortly.
In the wake of such a disruptive event, Bitget’s Gracy Chen gave his views on crypto market price trends and identified the next levels that bitcoin and ethereum are likely to reach in the short to medium term.
The ether blockchain, despite its own native currency showing great promise for the future, went through a turbulent 2023, with on-chain data recording particularly disappointing figures.
See all the details below.
Summary
Bitcoin and Ethereum: Bitget’s Gracy Chen’s price analysis following the latest news on the imminent arrival of ETFs in the US
Gracy Chen, managing director of cryptocurrency exchange Bitget, has revealed what she sees as the most likely scenarios for the price of Bitcoin and Ethereum.
News of BlackRock’s Bitcoin Spot ETF being listed on the DTCC on Tuesday, in preparation for likely approval by the SEC, sparked a strong rally across the cryptocurrency sector.
Investors are positioning themselves heavily on bitcoin and ethereum ahead of the next bull run, which could come in 2024.
In fact, next year, 3 events will be crucial in allowing the crypto bulls to prevail over the bears and push BTC, ETH and other top coins back to all-time highs:
- The start of interest rate cuts by the FED, estimated for June 2024, which will open the door to a major liquidity injection by the US central bank.
- Halving of bitcoin with a relative halving of the premiums for mining each block, scheduled for April 2024
- Final SEC approval of the first bitcoin spot ETF, which could come as early as January 2024, with a final deadline in March.
After several months of consolidation at low levels, the markets are now ready to take the big leap and go bullish, driven by a number of events and news that increase the chances of a return to the bull market.
In particular, Bitget‘s Gracy Chen believes that the next short-term targets for bitcoin are $36,000 and $38,000, with targets above $42,000.
For now, the king of the crypto market is stabilising nicely near the local top at $34,000, giving encouraging signs for the next bullish leg.
In the event of a pullback, which given the magnitude of bitcoin’s movement over the past few days would not be too far from the hypothetical scenarios, it would bring prices back into the $32,000-25,000 trading range.
It is very important not to lose the $25,000 support, which is the last bulwark capable of holding bitcoin’s current bullish structure.
As for Ethereum’s price analysis, Bitget’s CEO believes that the queen of cryptocurrencies is in a less strong state, forced to follow Bitcoin’s exploits.
Various on-chain data suggest that Vitalik Buterin’s network is experiencing a slight decline, while continuing to perform extremely well as ever.
As a result, if BTC were to flex its muscles in early 2024, ETH could easily reach $2,100, with higher targets at $2,400 and $2,800.
In the event of a price collapse, the most realistic scenario would take the smart contract platform crypto towards $1,500, where it will have to fight tooth and nail to support the bulls’ hopes.
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The current state of the Ethereum blockchain: 2023 a bad year for on-chain data
Ethereum, in this context of dependence on the price evolution of bitcoin and the upcoming news related to the SEC’s decision on Blackrock’s Spot ETF, has recorded uninspiring data in 2023.
Despite having pushed hard in the growth phase of the technology, with an ever-expanding and functional ecosystem of applications and layers, the ether blockchain is going through a phase of mass disinterest.
Throughout 2023, the 7-day average of volume traded on-chain on this infrastructure has observed a downward trend, remaining consistently in the range of $1-3 billion per day.
Since May 2021, the downward trend in this metric has become increasingly pronounced and is now at its lowest level in 3 years.
To put this in perspective, at the peak of previous bull runs, the daily transaction volume on the Ethereum network exceeded $15 billion.
To compare with bitcoin, around $20 billion circulates on the latter network every day (now that estimates are down).
The number of transactions recorded on the Ethereum network is not encouraging either, as we have never seen a consistent and sustained increase throughout 2023.
The 7-day average remained in a range between 950,000 and 1.15 million daily transactions.
On the positive side, there was no real collapse compared to 2021, but rather a slight consolidation, which shows that there is a solid base of interest in the Ethereum infrastructure.
Hopefully, in 2024, this metric will reach a new all-time high above the 1.5 million transaction mark.
Finally, it is very interesting to look at the graph of the fees recorded by the decentralised network over the past year, where, except for a few days in May, the commission income for stakers has been low.
In fact, on 11 May 2023, the network recorded an average fee (7DMA) of $22 per transaction, before quickly dropping below $5.
At the moment, the metric speaks of an average fee of around $3, but a few days ago we reached a level below $2 per TX, which has only been reached three times since 2020.
While a sharp increase in Ethereum’s fees may be viewed negatively by users who use the crypto network on a daily basis, it is a huge incentive for those who help to keep it secure, and at certain times can also boost the price of the underlying ETH currency.
